Anybody reading this is essentially already in the choir and being preached to, but still… if you haven’t already seen it, go see “United 93”.
The realism of the movie makes it look like a documentary, but with the rich depth of visual detail that comes with a full studio production. When you see the air traffic controllers, the military personnel, the flight attendants, and the doomed passengers, you say to yourself, “Yes, this is what it was like. These are real people.” No sleek Hollywood models for the stewardesses. No handsome hunks and babes with cleavage for the passengers. No popeyed screaming Nicholas Cage lookalikes for the air traffic controllers. Just ordinary, homely, fat, stressed-out Americans, doing their jobs or sitting on a plane.
And then there are the four sweaty Middle-Eastern-looking fellows speaking Arabic and casting sidelong glances at each other.
The violence is there, but discreetly portrayed. There is profanity, but only at the normal level expected of people under the circumstances. And a raw, stomach-wrenching tension runs throughout the whole film, even though we know how it ends, in that debris-strewn crater in the Pennsylvania countryside.
But the crater and the black mushroom cloud never appear in the movie: it ends at the same time as the lives of the passengers. After the last frantic rush towards the green field, the screen goes black, and the credits roll.
And then comes the big surprise (at least for me – I had deliberately avoided finding out anything about the movie, so that I could see it without any preconceptions other than my memory of what happened that day). One of the reasons for the convincing verisimilitude is that many of the air traffic controllers and military people are played by themselves. Of particular note is Ben Sliney, the supervisor of the National Air Traffic Control Center in Herndon, whose performance anchors most of the ground segments of the film. Check out the IMDB list for the rest. Every Flight 93 passenger and crew member (and also each terrorist) is listed in the credits by name.
One other important thing: the movie breaks the Great Taboo and shows the second plane hitting the tower. You see it just the way the air traffic control and military people saw it that day: on the live feed from CNN, up on the big screen.
It will help you remember why we fight.
At the siege of Vienna in 1683 Islam seemed poised to overrun Christian Europe.
We are in a new phase of a very old war.
13 comments:
Have a look at the following quote from an interview with the movie's director:
There were two hijacks on the morning of 9/11. There was the hijack that we know about, the hijack of the airplanes, of the innocent people, that flew into the buildings and all that terrible death and destruction that occurred as a result. But there was a second hijack that took place that day. The hijack of a religion by a bunch of young men who twisted and perverted it in order to create a creed and an ideology to justify the slaughter of innocent people, and that's a hijack that is still out there today. It's still going on today, and it's going to be very hard for us to work out what to do to deal with that.
Did the movie contain this kind of Islam apologism as well?
Anonymous --
No. They played it straight. I heard there was some kind of multi-culti ROP fluff on the movie's website, but it wasn't in the movie itself.
What you describe is pretty much the party line for the Bush administration. It is indeed a form of "apologism".
It's a great movie. (1) My husband's first comment was that it should be subtitled "Why We Fight." (2) For me, one of the most interesting things was that I noticed 3 Muslims leaving the theater together when the film was over, 2 women in hijab and a man. My reaction, instant and at gut level, was that I felt ashamed for them. I thought that if I saw them in the lobby, I would not be able to look at them, because I would feel unsure whether they had the decency to feel ashamed and lower their own eyes. Not embarassed, ashamed--in the deep, face-reddening, soul-shrinking kind of way. I don't know whether this is what their religion has always been, but it is certainly what it has become. And I refuse to hear any talk about "moderate Muslims," because I'm not sure such people exist. If they do, they are keeping deadly quiet about it. The maxim of the law is, "Silence gives consent." If therefore we are to construe what they think, we must construe that they consent in these awful actions (pace Robert Bolt).
The movies realism also hit me very hard, not just the air-traffic control tower scenes, but the passengers .. until their final act of heroism, they look and act just like average plane passengers, which was great
betsybounds,
The Muslims were there undoubtedly for inspiration. Trust me, they were NOT ashamed. When the terrorists were shouting, Allah Akbar, those Muslims found themselves deeply moved by their committment to jihad. They did in fact "give their consent" by their silence, but more importantly by their dress and their continued committment to their hate cult, Islam.
BTW, there was NO hijacking of Islam by these animals. 911 was Islam in its full ugly regalia. These people are animals and Mohammed (MHRIH) is the devil incarnate.
Y'know, on reflection the movie could play very well in Islamic countries. Think about it, the hijacker's were portrayed as very human, and very pious.
We tend to see the story from the passenger's point of view, but how would the muslim world view the movie? Remember the movie opened with islamic prayers. What was not shown was the jihadists on their final flings, out carousing and living it up.
The people on Flight 93 were indeed real people. See their pictures and facts about their lives at "Find A Grave." This link will take you to the page listing all but two of the victims of Flight 93. Apparently, the crater is now also their grave.
http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gsr&GScid=789442
The film was first rate. I cannot recommend it highly enough. The only ones who should not see the film are small children and schizophrenics.
The Dhimmicrates will remain unmoved by such "theatrics" Their lukewarm, measured, milquetoast, effete sophistry can yield nothing but defeatism. They are traitors.
Now they have a video on the internet called "Loose Change" that a lot of people seem to prefer to "United 93."
These morons claim that 9/11 was staged by the US government. "The planes were landed in Cleveland and the passengers herded off to a bus for a short trip to NASA headquarters. Where they are now is anyone's guess..."
What would your brain be made of to believe that type of mush? Quite a convenient belief to hold if you hate the need to combat an insane religious ideology--a war that might last decades. If you cannot stand the thought of such a long term dirty war, you grab any piece of garbage conspiracy you can find.
Al fin,
In order to believe that kind of mush you would have to either be a leftist kook or a Moooooslim raised on the evil ideas of Mohammad (MHRIH).
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